


All Our Yesterdays

by trill_gutterbug



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Bathing, Cuddling in the Bath, Horrible Fluff, I mean it's not soppy but it's really self-indulgent, In Which Trill Continues to Name Fics after Star Trek Episodes Because Why the Eff Not, M/M, that's it that's the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 21:47:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13303932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trill_gutterbug/pseuds/trill_gutterbug
Summary: “It might do you good to stop wallowing in your own filth,” Flint replies. “Although just as likely you’d dissolve completely.”Silver shakes his head. “If you haven’t, I certainly won’t.”Flint opens his hand invitingly. “Come find out.”Silver regards him thoughtfully for a long moment. “We won’t fit.”Flint adjusts himself, sitting up straighter. He lifts one dripping leg onto the edge of the rim, opening a vee of space in the water. “There’s room.”





	All Our Yesterdays

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't even manage to get any porn into this fic, wtf is wrong with me. I guess when you want to write gross cutesy snuggling fic, that's what you write. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

It’s exquisite agony, getting into the water. It burns his calves and his buttocks and balls, lapping up sharp into his armpits. He sinks down all the way, wincing. A layer of filth is scalded off him immediately, salting the water. It feels like being scoured with sand. It feels like being set on fire. It feels glorious.

He’s nearly asleep, lulled into a warm boneless trance, by the time he hears an uneven tread on the stairs, then the rattle of the door. He cracks an eye as it swings open. Silver stands silhouetted in the doorway, swaying on his cane. 

“I can’t see a damned thing in here,” he says.

Flint’s slow mind takes a moment to catch up. “I forgot to light candles.” His own voice startles him, deep and rough after so long drifting in silence. “There’s one on the table.”

“If I can make it that far,” Silver mutters. He steps inside and shuts the door. The room is dark with the curtains drawn, but Flint’s eyes adjusted a while ago. He watches Silver limp to the table and fumble amongst its clutter. Flint had deposited the contents of his pockets there earlier, plus his gun and powder, an empty beer flagon, and a pair of breeches in need of sewing. 

“Sorry,” he says.

“Never mind, I have it.” A flame flares warm and orange behind Silver, haloing him briefly. It grows brighter as he moves to light the lamp on the mantle. The way he moves makes Flint frown, the laboured jerkiness of it, the extra hitch in his step. 

“Are you hurt?”

Silver shakes his head, lifting a taper to the second candle by the bed. “Just sore. Walked all over hell’s half acre today. I’d be just as happy never to walk again.” This last said under his breath, as though he doesn’t want Flint to hear. When he turns back around, he seems to finally realise what Flint is doing. “A bath? What witchcraft is this?”

“The necessary kind.” Flint lifts his hand from where it has been dangling over the edge of the tub. He gestures to himself. “I’ve lost a stone of dirt.”

Silver laughs. “You well-bred types, such delicate personal habits.”

It’s a ridiculous thing to say. Flint is delicate in nearly none of his personal habits, and beyond that he’s about as well-bred as a cross-eyed mule. Besides, Silver is one to talk. “It might do you good to stop wallowing in your own filth,” Flint replies. “Although just as likely you’d dissolve completely.”

Silver shakes his head. “If you haven’t, I certainly won’t.”

Flint opens his hand invitingly. “Come find out.”

Silver regards him thoughtfully for a long moment. “We won’t fit.”

Flint adjusts himself, sitting up straighter. He lifts one dripping leg onto the edge of the rim, opening a vee of space in the water. “There’s room.”

There’s another beat of silence, Silver looking at him and the bath with a sort of knowing quirk to his mouth, a challenge between his brows. “Alright,” he says at last. He reaches to unbutton his coat. Flint watches him undress, observing, with a curl of interest tempered by warmth and sleepiness, the solid sun-browned width of his shoulders as he opens his shirt, the smooth hollow of his throat. Silver peels down to his breeches and boot, then comes to sit on the edge of the tub.

Flint watches him unlace the boot, movements slow as molasses, the curve of his bent back punctuated by the sharp knobs of his spine. Flint reaches to touch, running his knuckles up Silver's side, over his ribs.

Silver looks sideways at him through the fall of his hair. He smiles. It's tired, but genuine. “Long day.” He wrestles his iron leg off and drops it on the floor, groaning with relief. “I get used to never walking on the ship, and suddenly there's all this fucking dry land and a thousand things to do. Someone should have told me that quartermasters actually have duties beyond oration and coercion. I would have said fuck the whole lot.”

“Hmm,” says Flint.

“Oh, be quiet,” Silver grumbles. He straightens to wrestle out of his trousers, balancing himself on the tub. Flint watches hazily, too comfortable to even attempt censorship of the depth of his admiration. He touches the strong bend of Silver's wrist where it's braced on the porcelain, tracing up Silver's veined forearm to the crook of his elbow.

Silver gives him a sidelong smirk that says he knows exactly what Flint is thinking. “Has it been a long and hard day for you as well, Captain?”

Flint raises a brow. “Not yet it hasn't.”

Silver blinks with an innocence only exaggerated by how unexaggerated it is. “That’s a shame, don’t you think?”

“As it happens, I'm awaiting your input on the matter, Mister Long John Silver.”

Silver rolls his eyes. “You’re as funny as at least three quarters of the crew, Captain.”

Flint shrugs. “So they tell me.”

Silver finishes with the breeches and is suddenly completely naked, leaning on the bath and looking down at Flint. “Good thing you have other virtues,” he says. 

He lowers his head and Flint leans up, drawn like a bow string. It's still new enough, the knowledge that this is allowed and even welcome, that he nearly loses his composure immediately. As it is, he makes a noise when their mouths touch, a sharp strangled noise in the back of his throat, that makes Silver smile and their teeth bump. It's not awkward even then, the gentle press of Silver's tongue immediately distracting, and Flint lifts his hand to cup Silver's jaw, inviting him closer. He can't ever get tired of this, thirsty for it like water in a desert. He finds himself sitting up higher to get closer, licking deeper, and only stops when Silver takes hold of his wrist and pushes him gently back.

“It's cold out here,” he explains, but his eyes are as wide and hungry as Flint's feel. He leans down for one more kiss before he swings his legs around to get into the water.

It is a tight fit, even when Flint opens his knees as wide as they'll go and Silver turns a little sideways, settling with his back against Flint's chest and his right foot up on the end of the tub. But it's a wonderfully tight fit, pressed together in all the right places despite Silver's elbow in his liver and water sloshing onto the floor. The tub is a battered and stained survivor of what appears to be a great many battles and woes, but it holds water and it is available, and that is all that matters. The rest, they can make do.

Flint slides an arm around Silver's belly. He buries his face in the back of Silver's hair, nuzzling at him.

Silver laughs, shivering. “Betsy does that same thing.”

“She must love you,” Flint says. He nearly stammers at the last moment, feeling himself go shy, but Silver only says, “She must,” and settles tighter against him, tipping his head to the side so his neck is open for Flint's mouth.

It's much too tempting to resist, the smooth salty length of it, Silver's damp hair curling over his shoulders, sticking to Flint's chest. He kisses beneath Silver's ear. The curve of his throat smells sweet, the sour yeasty warmth of beer sweat rising from his skin.

Silver sighs, a deep heartfelt exhalation that displaces another little flood over the sides of the tub. Their clothes are probably soaked. 

Flint shuts his eyes. 

A long while later, the water is verging on chilly when he wiggles his toes and discovers them fat with wrinkles. 

“Is it time for bed?” Silver mumbles, his head tipped back on Flint's shoulder, his mouth brushing the ticklish place beneath the point of Flint's jaw.

“No, it's time to wash ourselves.”

“Ugh.”

Flint smiles, pressing it into Silver's temple. He agrees, his head heavy and his eyelids heavier, but he’ll be the responsible one. “Sit up and I'll do it for you, if you're that lazy.”

“I am.”

Silver levers himself up, groaning. Flint's chest feels cold without the weight of him, but he shifts with relief to make blood flow back to his numb buttocks and thighs. He undoes the ribbon in Silver's damp hair, picking the knot apart carefully so it doesn't pull. 

“There are branches in here,” he reports with amazement, picking a twig from the tangle of knots.

“I've sprouted,” says Silver dourly.

Untied and finger-combed, his hair is even longer than Flint had thought. It ends halfway to the small of his back, dark and thick, gritty with salt. Flint wraps his hand in it, curling it between his fingers. He rubs his face in it before he can stop himself. Silver makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh or just a yawn. He turns his head to catch Flint's eye. He doesn't say anything, but the glint of gentle amusement in his gaze makes Flint's cheeks heat. 

He dips both cupped palms into the water and pours it over Silver's head. It takes a long time to wet his hair all the way through, and it takes even longer when Flint has to stop halfway to leave a dark purple suck mark on Silver's neck, below his jaw. When he’s satisfied with that, he points over Silver's shoulder at the cracked soap cake on the plate. Silver hands it to him over his shoulder. It's a little grimy but could certainly be worse. Flint lathers it between his hands and runs them through Silver’s hair, scalp to tip. Silver tips his head into the scratch of Flint’s nails, sighing. 

“Thank you,” he says. “I’d return the favour, but.” He reaches back to run his palm over the fuzz on Flint’s head. His fingers drip on Flint’s face, then slide down the side of it. His thumb touches Flint’s mouth, his beard, and drops away. 

“Shut your eyes,” Flint says. “Don’t want soap in them.”

When they’re both clean and the water is murky, they get out and dry off with the clean boiled linen Flint had secured from the innkeeper when he’d paid for the hot water and soap earlier. His skin tingles like he’s been switched with a cane, pink and tight all over. He lets Silver put a hand on his shoulder to cross to the bed. 

The sheets are warm, mostly clean, the mattress soft. Flint sinks into it with a grateful sigh. 

Silver wrings his hair out one last time before lying down, wrinkling his nose at the wet heap of it on his pillow. “I didn’t think this through,” he confesses in a whisper.

Flint smiles, his eyes already closing. He reaches out an arm. Silver curls beneath it, tucking close enough for their thighs to tangle, his wet head against Flint’s chin. It’s tantalizing, the touch of their bare damp bodies together, but before Flint can even muster the energy to consider doing something about it, he is already falling asleep.


End file.
